Software security is an important part of computing technology, but it is difficult to understand and often overlooked by casual users. For example, digital certificates are a useful technology for establishing the identity of computers. However, an ordinary user of a computing device typically is not interested in the details of how digital certificates work.
Digital certificates can be issued by a certificate authority. If the certificate authority is well known and trusted, then certificates issued by the trusted authority that establish the identity of a computer can be trusted.
However, it is sometimes the case that a certificate is invalid for any of a variety of reasons. For example, a small business or hobbyist user may wish to forgo the expense of obtaining a digital certificate from a well-known authority and issue their own certificate, use an expired certificate, or the like.
As a result, such certificates may be deemed invalid and cause errors. A user will typically either stop using the computing device or ignore the error. Therefore, there remains room for improvement.